Through the cooperation of COX COMMUNICATIONS and FEAR.NET, we were availed of a free showing of Kenneth Branagh's Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.

According to COX COMMUNICATIONS and/or FEAR.NET, Branagh's production was the first "direct adaptation" of Mary Shelley's original, which had Victor creating the monster within-a university-apartment's loft rather than -the mansion. (I'm sure there were other differences, but I've never even seen Brown's adaptation.)

Also (BIG spoiler here)–though you don't actually "see" the monster die–you do see the monster-accept that he has no place in the world of man and -fade into the Arctic mist on a sinking ice-floe—other reviews (at the link above) say that the monster was given too much dialogue (e.g. "You never gave me a name.") to qualify as a movie-monster.

This production is now our 'classic' Frankenstein. Any other Frankensteins we see will always be nothing more than faint echoes of Mel Brooks' classic.